deltic
30-04-2010, 11:00 AM
Thought I might share some of my own experience with you guys on the forum, inspired by one of the recent threads, unfortunately I am not a very good writer, I apologize in advance guys, but here goes.
Many years ago, I was working upstairs in the market hall in Appleby, guests were just having the buffet, when in ran Bill another local dj, who used to run multiple disco’s.
He was in rather a panic and asked me if he could borrow one of my lads, after explaining I was there on my own, I asked why what’s the problem?
Turns out he had 2 disco’s running, one at a hotel on the bridge and a second about 100yds down the road at the cricket club, and none of his dj’s had turned up.
He solved the problem by putting an L.P record on at both venues and running between the two all night turning over and changing the records.
This wasn’t an isolated occurrence and seemed to happen to Bill quite often, being let down at the last minute, when he was least expecting it.
At the time I was young and ambitious(a bit like Charlie) building up my business, bookings were exceeding my one man availability, and there was only one way to go……more equipment do more disco’s.
My roadie then became the second dj, he had been with me a couple of years and had learnt the business and picked things up from me, he was only too pleased to be given the opportunity to work on his own, feedback from clients was good, so when two bookings occurred on the same night I could cover them.
Now after a while two shows started generating even more bookings, so here we go disco no3 and then no 4 were on the road, I was really lucky the guy’s I had working for me by now were reliable, good dj’s and they brought a fair amount of bookings in as well between them.
It wasn’t easy, I spent most weekends running around the countryside, delivering and setting gear up for the lads and all day Sunday going back collecting all the gear.
In those days putting a disco in the back of the car wasn’t an option everything was too big.
Things ran like that for a good number of years, until the guy’s wanted a pay rise, and it got me thinking………….it’s not really worth it! Is it?
I was paying them nearly half of what each disco was charging and all they had to do was turn up and dj for the evening.
No equipment costs no maintenance and they weren’t wasting half their life setting up and pulling down disco equipment. Something had to be done…….. but what?
I decided to go back and go it alone.
Over the coming months three disco’s were wound down, one guy went to work in a club, the other two went to work for somebody else for more money, as the guy suddenly seemed to be getting a lot more work.
And me well I started putting my prices up and targeting the disco’s I wanted to do, going out putting all my effort into one quality disco, was probably earning me nearly as much as four disco’s did and the bonus I was enjoying it a lot more, that was 20 years ago.
Over that time I have built up an excellent working relationship with two other disco operators in my area , which allows us to share surplus work between us, and it works every time.
the thing is I have a better business by networking with these other guys, and more probably opportunities.
But best of all I have a life as well !!!!
Many years ago, I was working upstairs in the market hall in Appleby, guests were just having the buffet, when in ran Bill another local dj, who used to run multiple disco’s.
He was in rather a panic and asked me if he could borrow one of my lads, after explaining I was there on my own, I asked why what’s the problem?
Turns out he had 2 disco’s running, one at a hotel on the bridge and a second about 100yds down the road at the cricket club, and none of his dj’s had turned up.
He solved the problem by putting an L.P record on at both venues and running between the two all night turning over and changing the records.
This wasn’t an isolated occurrence and seemed to happen to Bill quite often, being let down at the last minute, when he was least expecting it.
At the time I was young and ambitious(a bit like Charlie) building up my business, bookings were exceeding my one man availability, and there was only one way to go……more equipment do more disco’s.
My roadie then became the second dj, he had been with me a couple of years and had learnt the business and picked things up from me, he was only too pleased to be given the opportunity to work on his own, feedback from clients was good, so when two bookings occurred on the same night I could cover them.
Now after a while two shows started generating even more bookings, so here we go disco no3 and then no 4 were on the road, I was really lucky the guy’s I had working for me by now were reliable, good dj’s and they brought a fair amount of bookings in as well between them.
It wasn’t easy, I spent most weekends running around the countryside, delivering and setting gear up for the lads and all day Sunday going back collecting all the gear.
In those days putting a disco in the back of the car wasn’t an option everything was too big.
Things ran like that for a good number of years, until the guy’s wanted a pay rise, and it got me thinking………….it’s not really worth it! Is it?
I was paying them nearly half of what each disco was charging and all they had to do was turn up and dj for the evening.
No equipment costs no maintenance and they weren’t wasting half their life setting up and pulling down disco equipment. Something had to be done…….. but what?
I decided to go back and go it alone.
Over the coming months three disco’s were wound down, one guy went to work in a club, the other two went to work for somebody else for more money, as the guy suddenly seemed to be getting a lot more work.
And me well I started putting my prices up and targeting the disco’s I wanted to do, going out putting all my effort into one quality disco, was probably earning me nearly as much as four disco’s did and the bonus I was enjoying it a lot more, that was 20 years ago.
Over that time I have built up an excellent working relationship with two other disco operators in my area , which allows us to share surplus work between us, and it works every time.
the thing is I have a better business by networking with these other guys, and more probably opportunities.
But best of all I have a life as well !!!!